I Know You Love Me, Admit It

Ben Frost is a post-modern Pop artist who works in a variety of media ranging from graffiti and collage to the sign-writing and photo-realism. He criticizes and challenges contemporary society’s consumerism through the use of their weapons, advertising and entertainment iconography. As a successor of Pop art and mainly Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein his work relies on the heavy usage of the popular culture and consumerist images. However, unlike Warhol’s ironic glorifications of such objects Ben Frost is more prone to a mockingly approach, using various items as background of his paintings. Placing these iconic images into such juxtapositions often creates controversial and confrontational reactions to his work. These tumultuous reactions few times even resulted into Ben Frost’s works being removed from the exhibitions. But such responses to his work seem only to inspire him to take things one step further.

Frost states: I’m always trying to arrive at a nexus between beauty and horror. I want the viewer to enter the work via the relatable pop elements, but stay a while to engage and dig deeper at some of the further layers that are being presented. Our everyday society is a roller coaster of emotion. One minute we’re watching corgi videos, the next we’re watching a school shooting. The contrast of extremes is what interests me.